I now send you my list of the songs, which I believe will be found nearly complete. I have put down the first lines of all the English songs, which I propose giving in addition to the Scotch verses. If any others occur to you, better adapted to the character of the airs, pray mention them, when you favour me with your strictures upon every thing else relating to the work. Pleyel has lately sent me a number of the songs with his symphonies and accompaniments added to them. I wish you were here, that I might serve up some of them to you with your own verses, by way of dessert after dinner. There is so much delightful faney in the symphonies, and such a delicate simplicity in the accompaniments: they are indeed beyond all praise. I am very much pleased with the several last productions of your muse: your Lord Gregory, in my estimation, is more interesting than Peter's, beautiful as his is! Your Here awa Willie must undergo some alterations to suit the air. Mr. Erskine and I have been conning it over; he will suggest what is necessary to make them a fit match". • WANDERING WILLIE, As altered by Mr. Erskine and Mr. Thomson. Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, Come to my bosom my ain only dearie, Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. Winter-winds blew loud and caul at our parting, Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e; Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, As simmer to nature, so Willie to me. Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave o' your slumbers, How your dread howling a lover alarms! This gentleman I have mentioned, whose fine taste you are no stranger to, is so well pleased Blow soft, ye breezes! roll gently, ye billows! And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. But oh if he's faithless, and minds na his Nanie, Flow still between us, thou dark-heaving main! May I never see it, may I never trow it, While dying I think that my Willie's my ain. Our poet, with his usual judgment, adopted some of these alterations, and rejected others. The last edition is as follows: Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e; Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, The simmer to nature, my Willie to ine. Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers, But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nanie, Several of the alterations seem to be of little importance in themselves, and were adopted, it may be presumed, for the sake of suiting the words better to the music. The Homeric epithet for the sea, dark-heaving, suggested by Mr. Er skine, is in itself more beautiful, as well perhaps as more sublime, than wide-roaring, which he has both with the musical and poetical part of our work, that he has volunteered his assistance, and has already written four songs for it, which, by his own desire, I send for your perusal. No. XVIII. Mr. BURNS to Mr. THOMSON. When wild war's deadly blast was blawn. Air-" The Mill mill 0.” When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, A leal, light heart was in my breast, retained; but as it is only applicable to a placid state of the sea, or at most to the swell left on its surface after the storm is over, it gives a picture of that element not so well adapted to the ideas of eternal separation, which the fair mourner is supposed to imprecate. From the original song of Here awa Willie, Burns has borrowed nothing but the second line and part of the first. The superior excellence of this beautiful poem will, it is hoped, justify the different editions of it which we have given. E. * Variation, lines 3d and 4th: And eyes again with pleasure beam'd And for fair Scotia, hame again, I thought upon the banks o' Coil, At length I reach'd the bonny glen, I pass'd the mill and trysting thorn, Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, sweet lass, Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom, O! happy, happy may he be, That's dearest to thy bosom : My purse is light, I've far to gang, And fain wad be thy lodger; I've serv'd my king and country lang, Take pity on a sodger. Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me, That gallant badge, the dear cockade, She gaz'd-she redden'd like a rose- She sank within my arms and cried, I am the man; and thus may stifl The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame, And come, my faithful sodger lad, For gold the merchant ploughs the main, The sodger's wealth is honour; MEG O' THE MILL. Air" O bonie Lass will you lie in a Barrack." O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, The miller was strappin, the miller was ruddy; The miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving; O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ; |